A Killer Summer with Kate George Back to Blog
Killer Summer
Okay this is my dirty secret: Summer time is the best time for crafting villains. I get so cranky in the heat, and then there is the yearly home renovation project that doesn’t exactly make me a pleasant person to be around. We live in a nearly two hundred year old farmhouse. Even the simplest project turns into a major nightmare, and that turns me into a two-headed monster.
So I hit the keyboard and create jealous sisters and self-serving soap stars with secrets. I put them in situations where they can’t help but do wrong. Then I place a clueless citizen in their path, and because I’m hot and cranky and have paint all over my shoes I make the villains do awful things. They hire people to push their wives off bridges. They throw protagonists in their trunk, or drug her and transport her across the country. I ask myself “What else could go wrong?” and then I write that too.
I place my heroine in mortal peril so deep I’m not even sure how I’ll get her out of it. And I leave her there, because after all I’m still cranky. And the murderer? It looks like the villain is going to get away scot-free. After all, villains can be clever and why should our protagonist have all the fun?
After putting the screws to my favorite character I feel much better. I wash the sticky sweat off me (no air conditioning here) and go to bed in my right mind. And when I wake up hot and sweaty, already three quarters of the way to cranky I know I’ll be okay – because tonight I’m planning murder in the local hair salon!
Kate George lives and writes in rural Vermont where she is surrounded by dogs, kids and beautiful scenery. None of which she can fully enjoy because she’s a writer for heaven’s sake.
www.kategeorge.com & www.kategeorgewrites.blogspot.com
What a great way to get release from the heat and stress…I must try that….hehe!!!!
Valerie
valb0302@yahoo.com
in Germany
That sounds like so much fun! It’s like free thearpy! xD
Yearly renovation project? *curious*
Heat and humidity are seriously a hideous combination *says she who lives in Central Florida*
(oh and Ms Eden? the links in Ms George’s post are not working)
No A/C? I’d be impossible to live around…really…my husband calls me spoiled…I call it comfortable…no A/C…HUGS to you lol
Don’t know if you meant for that to be funny but it was to me because I feel the exact way about the heat and humidity. I could kill due to extreme crankiness. I can’t stand this always feeling sticky.
How lovely a 200 year old farmhouse. I love old houses! I feel for you with no A/C. Hopefully, it isn’t as hot there as it is here in southern MS.
Hi, Kate! Thanks so much for guest blogging with me!
Glad your up north where it doesn’t get as hot usually! I’m in TX where you don’t want to go outside! 100!
Keep up the great writing!
Enjoyed your post!! I live in Louisiana and if you don’t have a/c you would have to live in the pool:)
Hi! The humidity is why I left the East Coast entirely (that and the snow and ice in the winter). Still, what a great way to utilize a bad mood! I must try that during my next bout of PMS…
In this heat wave? you have to take whatever works to start those creative juices on the road to a new book.
Hi!
I live in rural VT too, and boy let me tell you – tubing down the river has become a fav past time! I have never read one of your novels, but I am going to pick one up next time I am in a bookstore!
Hi all! Sorry I’m so late getting back to you – the yearly project has got me by the throat! Last year it was trying to make the kitchen partially livable. This year it’s laying floor and painting my youngest’s bedroom. My MIL initiates the project – I’m way too lazy to start this stuff on my own! She flies in from California and cracks the whip on us until we are done! Good thing or it would only last until I got sweaty! The paint cans would still be in there a year later.
Really, I’m that Lazy!
Thanks Cynthis for having me! I’m happy to share – I love to spread my cranky humor around.
I appreciate all the comments – summer is summer is summer. We all get our own version of it. Gotta love to hate it. But you should hear me complain about winter…
Becky Jean – I’ve been tubing down the white river recently, Fun,but you’ve gotta wear sun screen! They had copies of Moonlighting in Vermont at Cover to Cover in Randolph – if you are anywhere near there. Also at Borders in West Leb. Let me know if you can’t find it, You can get it online, or I have copies here at the house.
Thanks again for the comments!
What a fun post! I need a MIL like yours. I’d rather read or torture my characters than do house projects.
Fun post!
I am cranky in the heat to. What a great post!